Arizona in lowest rank of racist states in the U.S. (2015, university)

[Arizona Mike]

The Washington Post reports a novel research strategy - scanning Twitter tweets for searches for the "n-word" by state.

Arizona was among the states with the lowest Twitter searches for that word. I would guess looking for tweets that simply contained the word may have been less useful, as it can be used as an in-group term in a more-or-less non-derogatory way.

The most racist places in America, according to Google - The Washington Post

"...researchers looked at searches containing the N-word. People search frequently for it, roughly as often as searches for "migraine(s)," "economist," "sweater," "Daily Show," and "Lakers." (The authors attempted to control for variants of the N-word not necessarily intended as pejoratives, excluding the "a" version of the word that analysis revealed was often used "in different contexts compared to searches of the term ending in '-er'.")"

"Interestingly, on the map above the most concentrated cluster of racist searches happened not in the South, but rather along the spine of the Appalachians running from Georgia all the way up to New York and southern Vermont.

"Other hotbeds of racist searches appear in areas of the Gulf Coast, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and a large portion of Ohio. But the searches get rarer the further West you go. West of Texas, no region falls into the "much more than average" category. This map follows the general contours of a map of racist Tweets made by researchers at Humboldt State University."

[JGMotorsport64]

Stupid. With a small African-American population of course we don't rank high. But if they used derogatory words towards Hispanics I'm sure it would be different.

[Suburban_Guy]

I don't know if it's from things I've read in the past or what, but I've always thought there was this stereotype that Arizona was a very racist state.

Maybe it was the MLK Jr. holiday thing, or others, who knows.

An unfair label but just my thought.

[Bummer]

Not sure this study substantiates anything . . .

Over the years, it has always been my experience that Blacks use the "n" word far more than Whites.

[Packard fan]

Originally Posted by JGMotorsport64

Stupid. With a small African-American population of course we don't rank high. But if they used derogatory words towards Hispanics I'm sure it would be different.

Or people who look "Hispanic" like some anglo whites, most American Indians, some Asians or even light skin Blacks. Other Hispanics here DON'T catch those slurs because they DON'T look "Latino" at all.

[wpme]

Originally Posted by Suburban_Guy

I don't know if it's from things I've read in the past or what, but I've always thought there was this stereotype that Arizona was a very racist state.

As someone from another state with the same stereotype, my experience with people in Az has been that many of them are more racist than what I'm used to, not in terms of actions, but in the types of comments and jokes that are made. Action would require going out and trying to find one of those minorities, which there are not many of..........

[Arizona Mike]

Originally Posted by wpme

As someone from another state with the same stereotype, my experience with people in Az has been that many of them are more racist than what I'm used to, not in terms of actions, but in the types of comments and jokes that are made. Action would require going out and trying to find one of those minorities, which there are not many of..........

Depends on your minority. Per the U.S. Census (Arizona QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau)

Arizona is 86% white when Hispanic or Latin descent is included in that figure.

When they break out Hispanics as a separate group, Non-Hispanic whites are a smaller group than the national average (56.7% in AZ compared to 62.6% nationally).

Hispanic/Latino residents are a far larger percentage of the AZ population than the U.S. as a whole (30.3% in AZ vs 17.1% nationally).

Biracial residents are on a par with the national average (2.6% AZ / 2.4% nationally).

American Indians are more than twice the national average (5.3% AZ / 1.2% nationally)

Asians are slightly lower than the national average (3.2% AZ / 5.3% nationally).

Black/African American is less (4.8% AZ / 13.2% nationally) - probably because Arizona did not have slavery, as your state may have, and we also were not a large industrial center which attracted many black workers towards the (according to the survey) more racist northeast.

So, based on the census result, we have fewer white people than the national average, and more Hispanics and Native Americans. For historical reasons relating to the slave trade, the emancipation, and the industrial age, we have fewer black people. Sounds like there are more minorities here than you think.

[Arizona Mike]

Here's the "racism map" - older communities would seem to be more racist, based on this metric. Increased competition for increasingly fewer jobs in the old Industrial Belt could also make racism worse there than in the west.

[BIG CATS]

Instead of people saying "good job, Arizona", we get excuses. Typical. Anyway, AZ isnt any more or any less racist than any state Ive ever lived. You better believe Ive run into people from all walks of life that have uttered racist remarks, and its not just whites who've been racist. It comes from all directions.

[jamies]

Great, shows my county (Mohave) as racist. I wouldn't say so - I think it's Las Vegas skewing the results.

Isn't it interesting that the most racist areas are where there's a lot of black people.

I'm likeing Montana - not enough people to even track results. My kind of place!